“This bill is a brazen attempt by Senator Sasse, Mitch McConnell, and the anti-choice GOP to score political points with their fringe, extremist base. It is a solution in search of a problem, and nothing more than part of the anti-choice movement’s layered, coordinated, and relentless campaign to criminalize abortion and punish women. Senator Sasse positions himself as a moderate, but with this bill he has shown himself to pander to the same extreme base currently using lies and misinformation to drive hateful policies that punish doctors trying to care for their patients. It is shameful, but not surprising, that opportunistic politicians like Ben Sasse continue to give anti-choice extremists a platform at the expense of women and families.

“We look forward to the day Ben Sasse and the anti-choice GOP put as much energy into actually helping women and families as they spend attacking our rights, but we won’t hold our breath. Sasse’s bill, based on inflammatory and imagined scenarios, doesn’t negate the fact that the vast majority of Americans are firmly on the side of reproductive freedom, including people in both parties that have compassion for a woman’s choices around her reproductive healthcare and respect her right to choose abortion. We are grateful to the senators, like Senator Patty Murray, who have stood strongly behind women and families, and worked to stand up to the lies of Sasse, Trump, and anti-choice extremists. As Sasse and the anti-choice GOP continue to use women as political pawns to score points with their fringe base, we have a message for them: the American people, who handily rejected this out-of-touch agenda in November, won’t stand for it.”

NARAL Pro-Choice America and its network of state affiliates are dedicated to protecting and expanding reproductive freedom for all Americans. NARAL works to guarantee that every woman has the right to make personal decisions regarding the full range of reproductive choices, including preventing unintended pregnancy, bearing healthy children, and choosing legal abortion. In recognition of its work defending our constitutional right to choose, Fortune Magazine described NARAL as “one of the top 10 advocacy groups in America.”